


Histories Repeated

by GriffinExtinct



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 02:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5230193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GriffinExtinct/pseuds/GriffinExtinct
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mmfr au set in 1920's Sydney, focusing on the five sisters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Histories Repeated

 From the very top room of the pale mansion, twenty-year-old Angharad Fitzroy despondently watched the tram rattle along Glebe Point Road below. With a sigh she rested her chin on the window sill, letting her hair catch the afternoon breeze. Certainly she'd had worse birthdays, this was true, but none had felt quite so heavy as this one. No longer a teenager, and yet still she was in this house.

From the street corner came a shout and she looked that way, despite knowing who it was - the newspaper boy. She refused, despite what Capable said, to think of him as 'her' newspaper boy. She certainly didn't want to be the object of his attentions, some mysterious Rapunzel in a tower, so why should she accept any responsibility over him? Instead she turned her back on the window and the outside world, and towards the room she knew better than the lines of her own palms.

On the floor in front of the wireless, the twins were playing some sort of complicated card game, Capable and Dagny taking turns to slap aces out of each others hands, Dagny accompanying her actions each time with a rather wicked laugh.

"Someone's going to get hurt," Angharad sing-songed in the tone of one who'd seen this all play out before and knew what was coming. They'd be fine though - Dagny was quick and Capable was true to her nickname.

"I won't be me," Dagny assured her sister, slapping Capable's hand loud enough to echo and then cackling with delight. Capable drew back her pink hand, shaking it out, and said, "I yeild."

Toast sighed loudly and pointedly as she looked up from her book to Dagny and said, "Would you please go back outside! That smell is making my head ache."

"She's quite right, Dag," Angharad agreed, wrinkling her nose up a little. "That smell truly is wretched."

Dagny stood and, after poking her tongue out at Toast, said, "you'll all be vying for my attentions when I wash this out and look the spitting image of Jean Harlow." She posed for the sisters, and while the expression and dress were just right, the mess of muck plastering her hair to her scalp ruined it somewhat. Dagny reached a hand back down to Capable and said, "come on, Caro. We'll go give the birds out back a show."

Capable shrugged at Angharad before following her twin, her own freshly coloured hair now looking more like the vase of poppies in the enterance hall downstairs and far less like the dirty blonde they both used to share. (Angharad had to admit it suited Capable though, those long red curls. She'd not yet chopped it off to match Dagny's fashionable bob.)

From down across the street Angharad heard the shout of that same damned boy again and she pulled the window shut firmly, annoyed at his attempts to gain her attention and ruin a perfectly good breeze.

"Turn on the wireless!" shouted the sudden burst of long dark hair and white dress as it appeared in the room, darting for the tall mahogany cabinet and flicking it on herself. A crackle of static and then the opening trumpets and piano that signaled the start of True Confessions. Cheedo sighed happily as the hostess began to speak and leaned against the cabinet. "Vallie Kitto is so keen."

Angharad and Toast shared a very subtle look, one that lasted only long enough to note that they were both thinking the same thing. There were things about their youngest sister that the two of them had mentioned briefly, in passing, without really saying them at all. It was safer not to really confirm such things.

But still Angharad had sometimes wondered if they should have discouraged the pictures she'd pasted up above her bed, those portraits of Geraldine Farrar and Mary Pickford and Pola Negri. Or the way Cheedo watched women walk down the street below their windows the same way that Capable and Dagny watched the men.

But eventually Angharad had come to the same conclusion as so many other things in their locked up little world: as long as their father never found out then it was fine.

True Confessions was a radio show that Toast had little patience for, but Cheedo and Dagny both adored it. Angharad liked to pretend to be above it and mostly kept a book open on her lap, but she couldn't deny the appeal of actresses reading out the truly scandalous things some ladies claimed they'd been up to.

Angharad something considered being that scandalous, but she had sisters to look out for. It was hard being the oldest. It was frustrating being the oldest.  
When Miss Giddy came up to bring them their afternoon tea, she put the tray down on the side table and then looked at the three girls assembled. "Your father has arrived home," she informed them.

Angharad sighed softly, because she knew what that meant, and began to get up. But Miss Giddy cleared her throat and said, "actually, he has requested the presence of Miss Theodora."

Toast looked understandably surprised and when she turned to Angharad for an explanation, Angharad had none to give her, just an equally puzzled expression and a head shake. "I don't know."

"This surely can't be good news," Toast said, putting her book down more heavily than required and then checking herself in the mirror. 

Angharad met her eyes in the reflection. "Please behave," she said, even trying to make it sound like a request.

Toast - surely the only sister as stubborn to a fault as Angharad - gave a half shrug. "We'll see."

Miss Giddy led Toast out the door and downstairs towards their father's office and Angharad chewed gently on the inside of her lip. It was beyond strange for Joseph to call upon any of the sisters other than Angharad. She was, and always had been, the favourite. He said - more than once - that although 'Angharad' had been the name her mother had chosen, 'Splendid' - her middle name - was the one he'd picked and what she should have been called all along. Rarely did he chose to use her Christian name at all, and Angharad hated that. She hated the idea of being called Splendid because that wasn't a person, that was a thing. Splendid was something you called a new motorcar not a daughter.

But being the favourite meant not only certain privileges, but also certain responsibilities. She was seen to be in charge of how her sisters acted, and seen to be the adult he should talk to when it came to them. Changes in the house that they needed to know about - and it was rare indeed that he chose to warn them of anything - went through Angharad to the girls, and Joseph hardly felt the need to see them all together at all.

There was dinner meals sometimes, but Joseph didn't show much interest in them at these things. He mentioned sometimes the idea of marrying them off, but Angharad truly doubted it would happen. She felt he enjoyed having them all there, not for the company but simply because he liked, very much, owning things. That was just how their father was - controlling and demanding and gluttonous.

So why Toast today? Angharad had trouble sitting down to focus on her book, too busy wondering what was being discussed downstairs. When she felt she could stand it no longer, she started towards the door and then crept down the stairs from their bedroom wing. Halfway down the stairs she stopped, sitting down and chewing on her thumbnail. (A terrible habit - why couldn't she break it?)

When Toast appeared Angharad stood and asked, "what did he want?"

"None of your beeswax," Toast said, striding right past her. Angharad frowned deeply, following her sister back up the stairs. Toast hadn't even slowed down and Angharad moved quicker to fall into step. 

"Toast, what was it about?" She made the mistake of taking hold of Toast's arm and Toast stopped walking mid-step and turned to glare at Angharad, shaking her arm loose.

"Mind your potatoes, Ang," the shorter girl snapped. Toast kept that glare up for a few moments and then she turned her back and continued up to the bedrooms. Angharad stayed still on the stairs and watched her stomp away. Then she cast a glance back down the stairs towards where she knew their father would be sitting in this office.

 

 


End file.
